Nikki Giovanni to Speak This Evening in Fayetteville.

From the University of Arkansas News Wire

I just came across the news that  Nikki Giovanni —poet, activist, and educator—will be speaking this evening at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville at 7:00 PM.  The lecture will be held in the Arkansas Union Ball Room.   For more information contact Steve Voorhies at 479-575-3583 or email him at  voorhies@uark.edu

This is a wonderful opportunity!  If you’re in the NWA area and attend the event, we’d love to hear all about it.   If you’d be willing to write a short post about Giovanni’s talk please let us know.  No doubt it will be an amazing evening.

From the University of Arkansas Press release:

Giovanni will read from her poetry, talk of the struggle for African American rights in America and human rights around the world and stress the importance of education. The lecture is free and open to the public. No tickets are required but seating is limited.

Nikki Giovanni grew up in Cincinnati and first came to national prominence in the late 1960s with the publication of her first books of poetry, Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgment.  She has published 30 books so far in her career, including poetry, essay collections and children’s books. Rosa, her collaboration with illustrator Bryan Collier, is a children’s picture book about the civil rights legend Rosa Parks. It was a Caldecott Honors Book and reached No. 3 on The New York Times Bestseller list.

Giovanni has been an outspoken voice for the African American movement all her life, and has lectured widely to promote equal rights for women and gays, opposed hate crime violence and, more personally, described her experiences as a cancer survivor. All of these themes have been prominent in her poetry, as well.

In 1987 Giovanni began teaching writing and literature at Virginia Tech, where she is now a Distinguished Professor of English. In the wake of the 2007 massacre on that campus Giovanni received national attention as she sought to comfort and rally her students and colleagues, telling them, “We are Virginia Tech … we will prevail.”

Giovanni’s appearance coincides with the university’s second annual McNair Scholars Research Conference, sponsored by the Graduate School and International Education. McNair Scholars are undergraduates from underrepresented groups, low-income families, or who are first generation college students. The conference is intended to encourage them to pursue graduate research degrees.

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